In the national capital the most-used greeting is usually not “How are you?” but “What have you heard?”

Canberra is in lockdown but that hasn’t stopped chatter from bureaucratic bunkers about a truly remarkable event,  a possible first in the annals of Australian political history.

A Cabinet Minister is paying his own legal fees in a defamation case, confirming that he alone, not taxpayers, will fund his case in the Federal Court.

Defence Minister Peter Dutton brought the case against refugee activist Shane Bazzi in response to Bazzi’s now-deleted tweet describing the Minister as a ‘rape apologist’ earlier this year, a charge the...